A Sinister Splendor

by Mike Blakely

  “See that you do.”

  He turned away and began to stroll through the troops gathered casually about the smoldering campfires. “Sergeant Johnson!”

  The grizzled veteran of the Indian frontier snapped to attention. “Yes, sir.”

  “Come with me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He saw a stout Irish lad. “McFarlen! Come with me.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  McCall spotted a middle-aged private—a Dutchman who claimed he had served with General De Kock in the jungles of Java. “Rediker!”

  “Coming, sir!”

  He chose nine more men from his own company and ordered them to proceed to the Matamoras Road where it entered the tall timber that had given name to Palo Alto. He proceeded to the next nearest company, spoke to the unit commander, and chose ten men who looked serviceable. Then he went on to the next company, and the next, until he had gathered one hundred fifty soldiers.

  Captain Charles F. Smith arrived on the Matamoras Road with his chosen troops from the Second Artillery just minutes after McCall arrived.

  “Column of fours!” McCall shouted. “Fourth Infantry on the left. Second Artillery on the right!”

  The men gathered from various companies milled about in confusion.

  “You heard the captain!” Charles F. Smith yelled. “Form a column of fours facing down the road! If you are Second Artillery, you will fall into the two rows on the left. Fourth Infantry will form the two rows on the right! Move!”

  Within a minute the column had come together.

  “Attention!” McCall ordered. “Left face!”

  He and Smith walked briskly among the ranks, inspecting the soldiers’ muskets, bayonets, ammunition belts, and canteens.

  McCall moved out in front of the formation to address the soldiers. “You are well aware that the enemy has withdrawn to the south on the Matamoras Road. You’ve been handpicked by Captain Smith and me to advance into the chaparral as skirmishers, by order of General Taylor. We fully expect to find and engage the Mexican Army between here and Fort Texas. Those of you from the Fourth Infantry will follow my orders. Those of you from the Second Artillery will follow the orders of Captain Smith.” He turned to Smith. “Captain?”

  Smith paused, listened to the distant bombardment of Fort Texas.

  “Do you hear those guns? Think of your fellow Americans besieged at the garrison. They have sustained an almost continual bombardment for seven days now. They are no doubt running low on ammunition, food, and water. I’m sure if you were there, you would want someone leading the way with supplies and reinforcements. Remember them and do your duty. As skirmishers, we will harass the enemy ahead. We will not charge until the rest of the army comes up. And then … we will all charge!” He looked at McCall and nodded.

  “Right face!” McCall shouted. “Forward, march!”

  As the column entered the chaparral, McCall heard a cheer swell among the ranks of Taylor’s army. Those men being left behind knew that they would soon march down this same road to do battle with an army superior in number to their own. The cheer stirred McCall’s blood to the point that the hair stood on the back of his neck.

  After marching two miles into the thick of the thorny forest, he halted his troops just short of a bend in the road around which he could not see.

  “Sergeant Johnson,” McCall said, “take three men and scout the road ahead. When you find the enemy, do not engage. Send two of the men back to report to me.”

  “Yes, sir!” Johnson pointed at three privates and trotted to the bend in the road ahead. Peering carefully around the bend, he watched for a moment, then passed out of view.

  The sun bore fiercely down on the men in the open road.

  “The rest of you find some shade and rest,” McCall ordered.

  It was almost a half hour later when two of the privates came trotting back to McCall’s formation.

  “Report,” McCall said, quickly returning their salutes. Both young men had the same wild look in their eyes.

  “Sir, we found ’em. They’re throwing up breastworks in the place where the road crosses the ravine.”

  Resaca de la Palma, McCall thought. “Did they see you?”

  “No, sir. We was careful to stay hid.”

  The other private chimed in, “Sir, the Sarge said they’ve got two companies of infantry on the road on this side of the resaca. Between the infantry units, they have a battery of guns—they look like twelve-pounders. The guns are deployed on both sides of the road. And there’s more infantry down in the resaca, too. A couple of regiments, from the looks of it. We saw the colors for the Tampico Battalion.”

  “Well done,” McCall said. He turned to Captain Smith. “Captain, let’s gather the men around us.”

  “On your feet,” Smith said. “Gather around.”

  When the men had crowded around the two officers, McCall gave his orders. “We will pass quietly down the road. When we reach Sergeant Johnson, we will deploy in the thick brush to either side of the road—the Fourth to the left and the Second to the right. We will spread out in line formation, facing the enemy. We will advance through the thicket until we see the enemy. After you hear my first volley, you may all fire at will. They will turn their cannon on us, so use the cover to your advantage. We are here to skirmish and harass the enemy at long range. We will not charge until the rest of the main army comes up behind us. Understood?”

  The men mumbled and nodded.

  “Do you have any words for the men, Captain?”

  The fiery artillery officer glared at the enlisted men surrounding him. “The honor of your country and your fellow soldiers is at stake here. I expect you all to behave with honor and courage.” He nodded at McCall.

  McCall formed the men into a column of fours and led them down the road. Reaching Sergeant Johnson, he sent Captain Smith into the chaparral to the right then led the men from his own regiment into the thorns and cactus spines to the left. Immediately, he found the undergrowth almost impossible to penetrate. Every step caused a scratch or puncture wound to some part of his body. Still, he found that he could push through the mesquite limbs and stomp down the cactus in his path with his boots. His men followed him single file.

  “Sir,” Sergeant Johnson said under his breath, “allow me to go first for a while. You’re getting all the best stickers.”

  McCall smiled and nodded. “Keep going in the same direction. When you hear me give a bobwhite call, stop and whistle the same call back to me. At that point, the men will advance in line to the south.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  He let Johnson lead the way into the thicket while he himself stayed in place. After some thirty men had filed past him, he whistled like a bobwhite quail and waited. Johnson returned the whistle.

  “Pass the word down the line,” he said to the soldiers on either side of him. “Turn south and press on toward the enemy.”

  The order was passed from man to man. McCall stepped over a prickly pear and plowed through a catclaw bush that ripped his trousers. Every man would now have to break his own trail. Sweat and blood trickled down his neck as thorns continued to poke through his woolen uniform. The acrid odor of weeds he trampled assaulted his nostrils. After some fifty or sixty excruciating yards, the dense brush began to open up somewhat and he found that he could weave his way around the thornbushes and cactus needles.

  He began to hear the voices of men ahead, and the cadence of shovels digging trenches. He crept carefully forward until he saw the glint of bayonets and the white leather shoulder harnesses of Mexican infantrymen, or perhaps of the elite grenadiers from Matamoras.

  “Halt,” he said, keeping his voice low. Signaling the men closest to him to take aim through the veil of leaves and twigs, he began to give the orders in a hoarse whisper.

  “Ready … Aim … Fire!”

  The volley erupted and brought screams and shouts from the Mexican advance guard.

  “Reload!” He heard more shot
s from all along the U.S. line and felt the Mexicans had been taken by surprise.

  “Fire at will!” he shouted.

  He planned to let the men near him get off two more volleys before ordering them to withdraw deeper into the brush for protection. But after just the second round, he saw the white smoke blast of a Mexican artillery piece, followed immediately by the loud report and a spray of grapeshot popping through the vegetation all around him. A private beside him fell over backwards and lay motionless. McCall went to look the man over and found a bloody hole in his forehead where a ball had penetrated his skull, killing him instantly.

  “Damn it!” he yelled, dragging the dead man. “Fall back! Retire firing!”

  Another cannon blast, and the chaparral around him whirred with projectiles and rattled with snapping wood. He took the ammunition belt from the slain private. The thought of the man’s body being forgotten and lost in this thicket did not sit well with him.

  “Soldier, carry this dead man to the rear and leave him on the road!”

  “Yes, sir!” The private threw his dead comrade across his back and plowed through the thorns to the rear.

  “Stay low and reload, men!” McCall scrambled forward to retrieve the musket the dead man had dropped and knelt behind a larger mesquite trunk to reload it. He took a paper cartridge from the ammunition box and tore the end off of it with his teeth. He poured the powder and ball, plus the three chunks of buckshot, from the paper tube into the muzzle of the musket. He used the ramrod to push the empty paper tube down the barrel as wadding.

  “Take cover and fire at will!” he said, pushing aside his fear of another load of grapeshot.

  He found a handy fork in a tree limb and took steady aim at the white X of an enemy soldier’s leather chest belts, barely visible through the foliage. He fired. Gun smoke obscured his view, but when it cleared, his target had vanished.

  “Continue firing!” he shouted as he returned to the protection of his mesquite trunk. He found himself out of breath but went about the reloading methodically, though his hands trembled with the excitement. All down the skirmish line he heard a ripple of firing from the U.S. troops. Then another cannon blast from the resaca and a scream from someone to his right.

  Be steady, he thought. Do your duty. He hoped the rest of the army would not be long in arriving.

  Captain

  EPHRAIM KIRBY SMITH

  Resaca de la Palma

  May 9, 1846

  Ephraim Smith left the open prairie, marching at the head of his regiment with his company of infantrymen. He felt the breeze die as he entered the thicket of sharp thorns and spiny leaves. Ahead, he found the dense chaparral broken only by the road upon which the Fifth Infantry treaded. He had his orders. Advance on the enemy. Engage the Mexican Army and break through its lines to open the Matamoras Road.

  “Good luck,” he had said to his brother, Edmund, just minutes ago, before Edmund had gone to lead his own company.

  “I’ll see you at Fort Texas for supper,” Edmund had replied.

  They marched until noon, covering five miles. Now Captain Kirby Smith could not only hear but also feel the artillery blasts. He knew they were Mexican guns, for no U.S. ordnance had yet advanced. Another mile and he could make out the crackle of the skirmishers’ muskets over the incessant grind of boot soles on dirt. Shouts came from the rear.

  “Halt!”

  Looking back, he saw Captain Ridgely of the flying artillery leading his battery. A few Texas Rangers under Captain Sam Walker accompanied Ridgely.

  “Step aside, men!” Smith shouted. “Off the road!”

  His troops gladly scrambled off the trace to let the artillery lead the advance.

  Ridgely nodded at Smith as he rode past. Smith lifted his chin in respect. The memory of how his regiment and Ridgely’s battery had faced down the cavalry assault by General Torrejon’s lancers was less than a day old. Behind the artillery captain came gunners mounted on the matching team of black horses pulling limbers hitched to six-pounders or caissons.

  Good, Smith thought. Let Ridgely’s grapeshot and canister soften the enemy line before we charge.

  His men reclaimed the road after the passing of the six-pounders. “Forward, march!” a sergeant shouted.

  The noise of the battle grew until stray chunks of grape or shrapnel began to pepper the chaparral ahead of him. He came to a bend in the road. Around the bend, he found the bodies of slain U.S. soldiers sprawled on the roadside—seven of them. A few wounded men sat with their backs against some tree trunks, bleeding. Captain Smith looked beyond these men to find smoke hanging thick in the air down the Matamoras Road.

  “Form a skirmish line to the left of the road!” Smith yelled at the men in his company. “Fight your way through the thorns!” He drew his saber and hacked down a mesquite limb in his path. Just a few steps into the brush, he looked back and could see only a handful of his men. The rest were already hidden behind the veil of uninviting vegetation.

  He let his ears guide him to the ground held by Captain McCall, who had led the skirmishers forward hours ago.

  “McCall!” he shouted, catching sight of the captain, somewhat shocked to find the officer’s uniform caked with dirt and blood.

  McCall motioned for him to stay low. “Ephraim?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is the whole army coming up?”

  “The Fifth is moving into position by companies on both sides of the road.”

  “What about the Fourth?” McCall inquired of his own regiment.

  “They were ordered to attack the Mexican left flank.”

  “Artillery?”

  “Ridgely’s battery is unlimbering now.”

  “Dragoons?”

  “Captain May’s company is coming up.”

  McCall frowned. “It’s Major May now.”

  “He received a brevet from yesterday?” Smith asked, surprised.

  “Yes.”

  “I hadn’t heard.”

  “I just hope he gets closer than he did at Palo Alto.”

  “What’s the situation here?” Smith asked, gesturing toward the enemy.

  A round of grape tore through the woods all around him. Smith felt one projectile tick against his shako hat.

  “That’s the situation!” McCall shouted.

  “Damnation!”

  “The resaca is just ahead. The Mexicans have three or four companies of infantry on the near bank, guarding the road. They have one battery on this side of the ravine. More on the opposite bank, hidden in brush. I imagine they have a brigade of infantry down in the resaca itself, waiting for us.”

  Just then, Smith heard artillery orders being shouted—in English. Though he could not see through the chaparral, he knew Ridgely’s battery was about to open up.

  “Ridgely’s going to take a pounding if we don’t charge soon,” he said to McCall.

  McCall nodded. “We must move to the right, closer to the road. The brush there is more open. The men can weave among the bushes. We’ve got to charge their batteries, Kirby. If we take the big guns, we can clear the road!”

  They heard Ridgely’s first volley erupt.

  “Let’s move!” Smith said, yelling back over his shoulder to his troops. “Move to the right. Prepare to charge the enemy batteries!”

  As they progressed, Smith found the open spaces McCall had described and began to see more men from his regiment. Ridgely let another volley loose. Smith was drawing a breath with which to order the charge when he heard the command come from his right.

  “Charge, Fifth!”

  “Charge, Fifth!” he echoed. He felt lightning coursing through his veins as he ran forward with his men, some releasing their tension in unintelligible shouts. They had sprinted only a few yards when he heard the great rumble of hundreds of hooves. Looking to the right, Smith saw Major May’s company of the Second Dragoons charging at full gallop down the road toward the hell-storm of the resaca. May rode his magnificent warhorse, Black Tom, at the head
of his company, saber drawn, long hair and beard streaming over his shoulder.

  Ephraim Smith sensed that May now sought redemption for his reluctance, yesterday at Palo Alto, to approach the enemy within close proximity.

  At the sight of the mounted attack, the men of the Fifth released a concerted war yell and charged ahead with new swiftness. Smith found himself running with his saber over his head, weaving around thorny bushes and leaping cactus patches. A cannonball shattered a mesquite tree beside him, a flying limb knocking him down. Disoriented, he scrambled to his feet and found himself facing the wrong way. There, on the road, astride Old Whitey, he saw General Taylor watching the battle, enemy fire whistling all around him.

  Smith turned and resumed his charge, now twenty yards or more behind his men. Beyond his infantrymen, he witnessed May’s saber-wielding dragoons flushing Mexican gunners from the nearest enemy battery—eight guns situated on the road in front of the ravine. May is definitely getting closer today. But the battle-crazed mounts of the long-bearded, long-haired dragoons could not be checked at the captured battery. The horses, many of them half-trained mustangs, plunged into the resaca, fighting the bits in their mouths as their riders desperately fended off Mexican bayonets with sabers. Meanwhile, the Mexican gunners reclaimed their artillery pieces, the dragoons having scattered every which way.

  A lull in the shooting resulted on both sides as men fought hand to hand or reloaded muskets and cannon. As he continued to charge, Smith could just hear the booming voice of an enraged General Taylor shouting behind him:

  “Take those guns and, by God, keep them!”

  The first soldiers of his company to arrive fired point blank at the Mexican artillerymen, bowling several of them over backwards. He saw a Mexican captain die with his hand on his cannon, refusing to retreat. The men of the Fifth continued to attack, some stabbing the remaining gunners with bayonets. The punctured men made horrible noises. As he charged between two captured twelve-pounders, Smith noticed his men turning one of them, preparing to fire upon the Mexicans, even though the enemy musket balls ricocheted strange songs of warning off the cannon tubes.

  A regimental bugler whom Smith recognized as a German immigrant marched a captured Mexican general toward the rear. The look of pure pride on the bugler’s face was almost comical. Now Captain Smith realized that the prisoner was General de la Vega, the noted Mexican artillerist.